Aussies foot bill for downtime tune-ups
HOUSE-BOUND Australians are investing their time and dollars in unusual cosmetic surgeries, sparking a boom in procedures such as lip filler and toe shortening.
Interest in cheek thinning, belly button alterations, rib removals and “man boob” removals are also on the rise, according to analysis from Semrush of internet searches in the past 12 months.
Searches for cosmetic surgery boomed in September last year, up 250 per cent on the past two years.
Cosmetic physician Naomi McCullum said patients were pushing doctors to offer more treatments as they became interested in changing more obscure parts of their bodies.
“Penis enlargement using filler is a new one … it’s growing and more people are becoming aware of it. They get a new confidence after. Vaginal bleaching and vulva filler is another one,” she said.
“We can also shrink the whole upper body to feminise someone. We shrink the deltoids, biceps. We can create a longer neck. A lot of trans women are interested in this.”
Dr McCullum said people were seeking to change “the little things that annoy them when they look in the mirror”.
“We also get people wanting filler in their earlobes to get rid of wrinkles. Calf slimming is really popular in Asia. People have their own tiny little things that irritate them,” she said.
Non-invasive surgeries such as lip filler and Botox were the most searched procedures, while toe shortening spiked in January, up 600 per cent month-on-month.
Sydney Foot Surgery founder Dr Haydar Ozcan said toe shortening and lengthening, foot narrowing and removing curled toes were now common procedures at his practice.
“Clients are driven by both self-consciousness and discomfort. I’ve had some people who won’t show their feet to anyone, and they are 26. They don’t go to the beach, they don’t go on picnics,” he said.
“Twenty to 30-year-olds are the most common demographic and I see about 30 per cent men and 70 per cent women.”
Business manager Rebecca Melin said she had her toes shortened to end years of discomfort and difficulty wearing shoes. She had two centimetres of bone extracted from her second toes.
“People never noticed my toes being longer, but I did,” she said. “I can now wear all kinds of shoes without any discomfort, which is the outcome I wanted ... they do not look odd and look like normal toes.”
The Australasian College of Cosmetic Surgery and Medicine’s Ron Bezic said increasing amounts of time spent at home during the pandemic had allowed people time to focus on their flaws. He said an inability to travel had ignited the local market.
“People are always looking at photos on social media and comparing them. Eyelid tucks to get rid of bulging or excess skin is another popular one. If you’re on a Zoom meeting, you’d be seeing that a lot,” he said. “Most practitioners ... are a lot busier than they were 18 months ago.”